Lazy Friday

Dave's been super busy lately and has a lot of evening classes this semester, so we haven't had much couple OR family time.  But he ended up with some free time this weekend and we made the most of it.

We went on a date Friday night, which consisted of sneaking pizza into the AMC at Lincoln Square, and then dessert at Magnolia's Bakery afterward--yum!!  Somewhere between the movie and Magnolia's, we realized that aside from the title of the harmless fantasy adventure flick we saw (Percy Jackson and the Olympians), and less dropping of the f-bomb on our way to the theater, we'd pretty much reenacted Lazy Sunday.  Nice.

Saturday, we took Rhys to Union Square to have lunch and get an umbrella stroller (Um, hello Mr. Stroller.  Where have you been all my life?).  As we were leaving the subway on 14th street, I realized that Richard Kind was holding the door open for David.  If you're like the 3 people we immediately texted about this and you just said, "Uh, who is that?" then,
A) That is why you will never beat us at Scene It, and B) He's this guy:

 Except he was with his 3 little girls and looked more like this:

Now, you may be thinking "What's the big deal?"  But we've lived in NYC for almost 2 years and the only celeb sighting we've had until now was when I got fooled by the wax figure of Morgan Freeman in front of Madame Tussauds.  Yes, if you must know, I gasped and got my camera ready and everything before I realized.

Anyhoo...after that, we saw a city bus pulling away from the curb, with it's LED display (usually where it's route/destination is posted)  flashing "EMERGENCY - CALL POLICE."  So, I did.  I'm guessing I either helped thwart a hijacking, or I got some poor bus driver fired for unwittingly flipping the switch.  I'm going to go with the former explanation so I can feel like an extra in Speed.

At this point, we realized it was WAY past Rhys's nap time (getting anything done in NYC usually takes about 5 times longer than you anticipate) so we decided to just let him skip it (yes, you heard me right- I can relax and be flexible, occasionally) and headed to Times Square to ride the Toys'R'Us ferris wheel.  The line ended up being really long, so we saved it for another day but still had a blast exploring the store.  Rhys enjoyed the magic demonstrations, visited Lightning McQueen heaven, had his face stroked by Geoffrey the Giraffe (yah...we thought it was a little weird too), had a roaring contest with the T-Rex from Jurrassic Park,

 The T-Rex, and our friend...um...Bill.  That's right, Bill.

*have you figured out yet that I forgot to bring our camera along on this trip?

and met your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. He was in absolute awe of Spidey.  It was so cute, and the guy was really good at getting down on his level and talking to him.  It was all Rhys could talk about for the rest of the day.  He kept pointing to this picture we got, shouting "Man! Man!"

 All he wanted to do was look at Spider-Man and talk to him; hence the "Why won't everyone stop asking me to look at the camera and just give us a minute?" expression on his face here...

After all that excitement, Rhys conked out in his new stroller on the way home.  This kid hasn't fallen asleep in anything but his own bed since he was about 6 months old. 

*This was also the moment I realized I had a cell phone camera.  C'est la vie.

Miracle on 34th Street...sort of

On Thursday, David decided to take the morning off so we could take Rhys to see the Macy's Santa together.  We went fully expecting the following experience:

I'm not saying we wouldn't have gotten a big kick out of it going that way...but since it was Rhys's first experience with all things Santa, it was probably fortunate that it went something more like this (I liked the 70's feel of this filter- for some reason 70's photos always remind me of my family's old photo albums and my first Christmases):

Very cool window displays telling the story of Miracle on 34th Street

8 flights up an actual wooden escalator

A "train ride" to the North Pole...the ground rumbles underneath as you walk through ...very cool

A walk through the village- the path was lined with awesome displays and friendly elves, animals, toys, train sets, lighted trees and Giant Nutcrackers.

 

As chance would have it, Lemondrop the elf turned out to be a girl from my high school

There was so much to see it actually felt a little like Disneyland.  By the time we got to Santa's house, Rhys was dealing with a wee bit of sensory overload, hence the slack-jawed stare.  But he loved Santa's jingle bells and wants to show us this picture several times a day so I think the overall impression was a good one.

I could have handled Santa being a bit more jolly, but they did make up for it by making sure everyone had a couple minutes of one on one time with him- literally.  You are the only people in the room with him (they lead you through a windy "forest" before you get to his house...in reality they're taking each group down separate paths to different Santas...pure genius!)  and they take a professional shot, but are super cool about taking a shot for you with your own camera too.

This was seriously one of THE best New York experiences we've had to date.  Which if you know anything about the way our experiences here usually end up, you'll realize this truly was a Christmas miracle.  Macy's is also decorated beautifully which really got us in the mood for the season.  AND I was able to get this cool shot outside to put on our Christmas card this year. 

Merry Christmas, every one!

Back in the City

We've been back in NYC for almost 2 months and I need to catch up on all the fun we've been having.

David turned 30 at the beginning of September and I surprised him with tickets to Phantom since he'd never seen it live before. It was really good- and the cast was actually operatically trained! I couldn't have been happier. I grew up listening to the original cast and saw live performances in S.F. and London when it was still in its heyday- but it always bothered me that a singer with a girlish, lilting, high-pitched voice could out-sing an actual Diva. Sorry Sarah Brightman fans-- the chick can hit a mean high E and has gotten a lot better over the years, but let's face it...she more often than not sounds like a caterwauling tabby.

Anyhoo- the new guy playing the Phantom (just replaced the previous long-running one) was AMAZING! The chandelier crash was disappointing- it kind of halted and jerked slowly down instead of a dramatic plunge, and for some reason both David and I remember glass crashing sound effects- but not in this performance. All in all though- it was a great evening.

It's on the most adorable little theater district street, and Hamlet was playing next door starring Jude Law...it made us giggle.

The next day, we celebrated David's birthday as a family with a trip to Central Park Zoo.  It's small, but has some great exhibits including penguins, sea lions, a snow leopard, 2 polar bears in a gigantic habitat, and a great little children's petting zoo.  Rhys got "attacked" by the snow leopard who leaped at the glass while Rhys's nose was pressed up against it.  It made the crowd scream, but do you think our little daredevil was shaken?  He just kept right on pointing and babbling about the "kitty."  I got some great shots, but unfortunately they are all from my new Nikon and have to be converted first, which I don't have time for.  But we went back a couple weeks ago with some friends, so these will give you the idea:

Our apartment is also way better this year.  We had to give up our previous one for the summer because they don't allow subletting, but it ended up working out great.  We got the exact same layout, two floors higher, which puts us just above the top of the building behind us.  This means MORE LIGHT and a bit of a view!  Hooray!  It also has better floors and a linen closet in the bathroom.  I literally had tears spring to my eyes when I realized I didn't have to keep our towels in the bedroom drawers anymore.  Oh- simple joys!

Here's a great shot of our "view"

A thousand words...

So not only do I not feel like writing much right now, I also don't really have the time. But my blog is getting sorely neglected (this seems to coincide with when I joined Facebook...do any of you out there who so enthusiastically encouraged me to join have anything to say to make me feel better about that? =)

At any rate, not a whole lot has happened since my birthday that's super blogworthy anyway so I'm going to post a bunch of pictures I've been meaning to share instead that adequately sum up the past 2 weeks. Enjoy!

On Valentine's Day, we finally made it to the top of Rockefeller Center to see the city- it was beautiful! And very nice to get "above it all" for a few minutes. The Empire State Building (behind us) was lit up with pink and red lights. The photo really doesn't do it justice- it was pretty amazing!

The rest of the view. I swear that's all the pollution you can see. David thinks it just the clouds. Either way- pretty cool looking. I still can't believe I really live down there somewhere...

The famous Rockefeller ice skating rink. At $30 bucks per skater, this is probably as close as I will ever choose to get =)

Here you go, mom- this one was taken just for you! Maybe someday I'll make the trek down in the morning and try to get one in person for you...

Same goes for this one (the Today Show set)

We waited for 3.5 hours to get seated for dinner at the Olive Garden in Times Square. Low-blood sugar + wall-to-wall people + a wait time that goes an hour longer than promised = 1 irritable Heather. So it was a VERY good thing for everyone involved that we got seated right before I was sure to lose it and tell New York City exactly what I think of it, and that this ended up being our view.

One more look...just to make my blood pressure go down after remembering that wait.

Side note: At 11:00 as we were finally leaving with full bellies and happy countenances, we heard the host telling people that it was now a 4 hour wait. Hold the boat. Doesn't that mean a 3 am seating? That's exactly what it means. So I guess we were the lucky ones, after all!

Back to everyday life. This is one of Rhys's favorite things to do while I wash dishes. I have to believe it's the way that cupboard door is cutting into my leg that's making me look so hippy...

I just couldn't help myself...is that wrong?

This is how I found Rhys when I got up to leave a visiting teaching appointment recently. He'd gotten a hold of an orange crayon and drawn all over his face and shirt with it.

Thanks for the exersaucer Grandma Barbara! We are both loving it!

David wanted you all to get a feel for what grocery shopping is like. My heart is palpitating just looking at this! This is actually one of the wider, more logically organized isles...

These guys can't get enough of each other. They really are best buds. It's so sweet to see Rhys freak out and crawl to David as fast as he can when he comes home.

Rhys has started giving really great hugs and loves. We can't get enough! And I just have to say thank you to David for being such an adoring, involved Daddy and helpful husband. He doesn't even take a minute for himself when he comes in the door at night- he immediately takes over and plays, feeds, bathes, and puts to bed so I can finally sit down and chill.

Day at the Museum

Last Saturday, we decided to blow off chores and do something New York-ish. Since it was rainy and blustery we decided on the American Museum of Natural History (you might recognize it from such films as Night at the Museum). Another couple from our ward went with us, which ended up being a really good thing since they knew what they were doing. The place is enormous! And such a weirdly laid out maze that if they hadn't been with us, I think we might still be trying to find our way out of the Hall of North American Sea Birds!

Our favorite exhibit was the dinosaurs. They were displayed in gigantic halls with stark white walls and floors, pristine glass, and shiny metal accents. The juxtaposition between ancient and modern was really striking.



Another thing that stuck out to us was how different they made the place look for the movie. They cut together different parts of the museum to create a whole new interior. For example, the lobby in the movie is a combination of the 1st floor lobby, with the ceiling from the rotunda on the floor above it, and the desk from the subway entrance lobby in the basement. The Easter Island head is in a completely different, incredibly hard to get to spot, and of course the T-Rex is actually in the exhibit I just described above. So even though you still see a lot of the things they used in the movie, you don't really feel like you're in the same place which I think would have been a bummer if we hadn't already been told that in advance.


Rhys loved everything (as usual) except for when I took him to see a T-Rex jaw bone up close. When I leaned forward to let him touch the teeth, he acted terrified for the first time in his life. He wimpered and clung to me really tight. I gave him a second, showed him how fun it was for me to touch them, and then tried again. This time he burst into tears and started shaking and heaving and twisted around to bury his face in my shoulder! I was so surprised I didn't know how to react. This kid has never shown fear about ANY new experience. I took him away and got him calmed down, then David took him back again and he seemed ok and eventually reached out and touched it. We're still not sure what caused it. It wasn't bigger than him, and it wasn't even attached to a head or body. It was only the lower right half of the jaw mounted on a wall, so there wasn't even any context he could have picked up on (even if he was usually afraid of big things, or animals, or whatever-which he isn't). The only thing I can think of is that he's starting to get a little clingy with me lately, and it was really crowded in there, so maybe he felt like I was going to pass him off to a stranger or something? Anyway, he got over it, and so did I and everything else went really smoothly.

We only saw about 1/10 of the exhibits, but we hit all the main ones. Since we went near the end of the day with little kids, we were pretty glad we knew the New York insider tip about the "suggested donation" fee. Most of the museums here are completely funded by the state. However, they still ask for an exorbitant suggested donation, which they pass off to unwitting tourists as an admission fee. So if you don't know any better, they'll just ring you up at the ticket counter for $15-20 bucks/person. In actuality, you can pay whatever you want and most New Yorkers go with $1/person. We had to laugh when we looked at our receipt which actually showed a $30 charge minus a $28 discount.

Anyway, it was really fun and we're glad we postponed those piles of laundry and dishes!